Sh'rt.
It is very late when the doorbell rings, and Norge is startled out of the realms of fantasy of the novel he is reading.
He's thinking whether to answer or not, when the doorbell rings again... He stands up, alert and in his pajamas, throws on a dark coat, calls out but no one answers. An emergency, perhaps? Obviously, and despite himself, he worries. He hastily finds the key, opening the door in the blink of an eye, only to come nose to nose with...
Oh, gods.
She stands there in the threshold, looking as sheepish as she can, shivering in the pajamas Norge lent her earlier today. The young man rolls his eyes, thinking what the hell, but not uttering a noise.
"I can come in, right...?"
He'd very much rather she didn't, but she's shivering and barefoot, and he... just... can't.
"Where've you been rolling?" he asks dully, as if it were just a daily thing, having her come like this, mud-filthy, twigs in her hair, cold, short of bewitching. His eye twitches.
"Here and there," she says with a slight smile, feeling instantly better as she carries a chair near the fireplace. "Couldn't find my hat, though," she adds, eyes ever so slightly so downcast, and Norge urges himself not to feel sympathetic. That is one idiotic creature. Nothing to feel sorry for.
"… and you're here, because…?"
The answer is quite obvious, though, and he could feel slightly flattered that she remembered where his house was enough to come back. But he's seen her drunk, and he's seen her flirt, and he remembers she's not just another woman, so he lets it pass.
She says it easy and matter-of-factly, "Where else would I go?", and he has to turn towards the shadows to hide what he suspects could be a blush, but he won't risk it.
"Go take a shower or something, the gods know you're needing one," he mutters, and even if she looks at him clueless for a while, she eventually makes sense of what he's said, and with this cheerful beam that he considers so misplaced on her face, she springs to her feet and darts inside.
Well, she'll find the bathroom, eventually, so why bother? Norge falls back onto the sofa and picks up his book again.
...
She's dripping over the carefully waxed parquet, and Norge is trying his best not to strangle her and not to horribly give himself away blushing like a teenager; but he is not really succeeding much, but, thankfully, she's being dense and clueless.
The young man doesn't even try to scold her, he just settles for rolling his eyes and exiting the room, after a grumpy mumbled, "I'll get you clothes. Don't do anything stupid."
He vaguely wonders when he'll run out of spare clothes to lend her, by the by, and somehow resents that *his* clothes look better on her. Somehow. And they're the same height, too.
She beams when he shoves yet another pair of pajamas onto her (whatever she was wearing before is now safely stocked in the laundry basket), and he gazes out of the window then, trying to appear unfazed by her familiarity in choosing to change right there by the fireplace. He doesn't care, and he's not looking, and he's certainly not going to like looking if he accidentally does, but he won't. He doesn't care.
At least, that's what he tells himself.
...
A/N: Short chapter but bear with me. Stuff is going to happen, and it may involve alcohol.
Please suggest a crack!support character! I'm leaving it up to you, guys! You choose who'll be making a cameo!